


Shadows

by Siver



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-23 00:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20883341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/pseuds/Siver
Summary: Poisoned in Mysidia, Cecil drifts





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 3
> 
> 100 Fandoms Challenge  
Prompt: Shadows
> 
> A slight what-if.

Cecil burned. He turned in the bed, throwing off the blanket with a shiver and tried to breathe against the nausea twisting his stomach. A part of him knew coming here was risky too. If the poison coursing through his veins didn't destroy him there were any number of other ways and other people to see to it that he wouldn't see the morning. He couldn't complain. Leaving hadn't been an option however. He'd barely staggered to the inn where he was fairly sure he'd been overcharged by the keeper whose face wore the same look of disgust and hatred he'd seen all through Mysidia. He hadn't had the energy or right to protest. The short dizzying walk to a room had been interminable, but somehow he'd made it.

It had been a struggle to remove the constricting and overheating armour, its dark plates clinging to him. Maybe it would pull him wholly into the abyss. Be lost to the underworld. Maybe he already was; fires licked at him as surely as the flames consumed Mist.

Fire and ice. He pulled the blanket around himself again for it was surely ice that left his face chilled and damp. Freezing... sink into the ocean where he should have been before it spat him out upon Mysidia's shore. Sink to nothingness, the only one who should have been lost to its depths. Yang, Edward, Rydia...

They were all lost as everyone who came too close to him was. Kain…

Rosa…

_They danced. A swirl of colours spun around them, but as long as he focused on Rosa’s face he could ignore the nauseating hot mass. They stepped apart arms stretched and fingers lightly touching, a simple movement and they would step back together, to always come back together to the centre and… Rosa’s fingers slipped away. _

_Her hands fell lifelessly by her sides. “Why did you let go?”_

_He stood hand outstretched still. “I’m right here. You only have to reach for me.”_

_“That’s not what I mean. Where is Cecil? Where is the man I loved?” She looked away. “You’re nothing but a shell. A shadow.”_

_Darkness clouded the edges of his vision. “Rosa.” He reached for her and his hand was gauntleted in black._

“Shh!”

What was…? He couldn’t move. He could only see darkness. He couldn’t open his eyes. Was he still asleep or awake? Was he anywhere or anything?

There were quiet voices somewhere nearby. Young… a girl’s. Rydia? No. And a boy’s. Scattered words filtered through his fogged senses.

“…cares? …murderer.”

“…Elder… furious…”

“Look! The armour—.”

“Shh!”

“Hurry up.”

“…staff…”

Something washed over him, a brief sensation of a different sort of warmth than the heat plaguing him. He was sinking again despite muffled instincts screaming at him to be on guard. There were others here, but if they wanted their revenge upon him so be it. He was at their mercy. Sleep pulled him back under.

Cecil woke to sunlight filtering through the window. The pain and heat had dissipated and when he cautiously sat up the room remained steady. He stood and found his strength returned. As he donned his armour once more—he would not hide here—his thoughts ran over the night and he remembered the voices. Had they been real or merely another fever dream?

The Elder. He would go to him and while they couldn’t mend the harm he caused, he would offer his apologies, and brazen as it was ask for aid not for himself but so that he might have a chance to return to Baron and to save Rosa and perhaps a chance to find the others if they lived as he had. He would take what was coming to him, but Rosa had to be saved and word of Golbez spread.

And when the Elder granted him the aid of two young mages he thought there was something familiar in their voices. When Porom gave him a small nod as they gathered outside the Elder’s home to make preparations for the trip to Mount Ordeals, he returned it and knew he owed the twins twice over.


End file.
